Considering growing pollution levels in a world recovering from the pandemic, air purity is an absolute necessity. A survey by IQ Air suggests that the UAE has fairly poor air quality, ranking in the top 15 globally of worst air quality. In this scenario, air purifiers are a high priority as we need to breathe fresh air at least indoors.
Air purifiers make sure that a room is free of pollutants like viruses, bacteria, allergens, etc. Moreover, some of them also have the ability to remove bad odors or neutralize germs and other airborne particles. Having agreed that an air purifier is no more a luxury, we stress on how one should go about finding the appropriate one for our home.
Factors like room size, standard certifications, electricity consumption, filter replacement charges, and noise level come into play while making the final decision. It is our effort here to provide you with a guide to your purchase and towards this end have listed some top notch air purifiers that are value for money in all aspects.
Best air purifiers in the UAE
1. Dyson Purifier Cool
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Dyson's Purifier Cool comes with an intelligent purification feature. It has HEPA H13 along with activated carbon filtration that removes 99.95% of pollutants and allergens like bacteria, dust, mold, pet dander, VOCs, pollen, etc. The backward airflow mode purifies the air without cooling or heating the individual in the room. The device from Dyson features an automatic sensor to keep a check in real-time on the levels of four 4 different pollutants, including NO2, PM2.5, VOCs, and PM10.
Air multiplier technology and 350-degree oscillation used in Dyson air purifiers also keep the room warm. It also supports WiFi connectivity allowing users to control it remotely. The remote can be accessed via Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa voice controls. It comes with features like heat temperature setting, quieter operation, auto mode, 10 sir-speed settings, sleep timer, and more to make the device user-friendly.
2. Xiaomi Mi Air Purifier 3
A few air purifiers can fall in the affordable category, and this one by Mi is one such product. Similar to its predecessor, Mi Air Purifier 2, Mi Air Purifier 3 possesses a clean air delivery rate (CADR) of 380 meter cube per hour. It sports an OLED touch display that also has air quality indicators. The 360-degree filtration available in this one removes around 99.97% of pollutants from the air.
Mi Air Purifier has a design that allows consistent airflow cleaning 6,333 liters of air per minute. The energy efficiency and no-noise design of the product make it value for money. Mi smart app control lets the user control the air purifier without any issues, and it also supports both Google Assistant and Alexa.
3. Blueair HealthProtect 7470i
The Blueair HealthProtect 7470i will work tirelessly to keep your air clean at all times, and does it in a quick and quiet manner every time. There’s a lot of tech packed into a seemingly innocent looking device, and you’re bound to see (and feel) the benefits of its presence within a week of switching it on.
It's got a great accompanying app to monitor your air quality levels, and filters are very easy to clean and replace. Meant for larger spaces, this air purifier is easy to set up in any room of your house, and works diligently at keeping your air clean.
4. Blueair DustMagnet 5440i
The Blueair DustMagnet 5440i is a very stylish air purifier and will blend in easily wherever it’s placed. Air purification is quite efficient, though you’ll have to make do with only PM2.5 monitoring on this model. Still, it’s a good choice for medium-sized rooms where you don’t want a garish purifier taking up space.
5. Electrolux Flow A3
The Electrolux Flow A3 is a fairly compact air purifier that’s great for an individual room or small space. It’s stylish enough to not immediately look like an air purifier, though its grey appearance may make it stand out a bit more. It’s deceptively easy to set up – just unpack it, add the filter, and turn it on. The Flow A3 automatically adjusts its fan speed in response to particles and allergens in the environment, and a unique spiral airflow method ensures that clean air is distributed as quickly as possible.
Of course, this simplicity comes with the caveat – the Flow A3 isn’t smart-enabled in any way, so there’s really no way to track just how good your air quality has become. While there is an air quality indicator on the unit itself that tells you roughly how good the air quality is, that’s all you’ve got to go off. For a kid’s bedroom or a small studio space the Flow A3 would do a good job, but for larger rooms or smart integration, you’ll want to look at much larger models than this one.
How to pick an air purifier
When picking an air purifier, there are a number of factors that you have to take into consideration, which will also then directly affect the price point. It's important you take these factors into consideration first before even looking at air purifiers, just so that you're not buying one that doesn't exactly meet your needs.
Here's a quick rundown of all of the things that you should be looking at when picking an air purifier:
Room size
Air purifiers are often broken down by room size, with larger spaces requiring more powerful and therefore more expensive purifiers. An average bedroom would measure around 25 square meters, while a studio apartment would be around 55 square meters. Pick an air purifier that matches your room size, otherwise if you pick an air purifier that isn't powerful enough to work with your space, it won't be as effective.
Air cycles per hour
The other thing to look at is how often the air purifier is able to purify the air in your space per hour. Larger air purifiers are able to do this more often, but medium-sized air purifiers are just as good. This is an important feature to keep in mind especially for spaces that are near kitchens, where smoke and other smells will more frequently have to be filtered out.
Type of filters
This is another important factor to keep in mind. Not all air purifiers are built the same when it comes to their filters. Some use standard HEPA filters, while some use specialized light or a stored charge to destroy bacteria caught by the filters. You should also factor in the cost of replacement filters and how long they last between each change. Keep in mind that air purifiers running in very busy areas or areas with a lot of pollutants will need cleaning and changing more frequently.
Particle size
Air purifiers can also be grouped by the particulate matter (PM) that they filter out. At the most basic level, PM10 particles are what most air purifiers can filter out to start with. These come from sources such as burning fuel and vehicle emissions, More advanced air purifiers can detect even smaller particles such as PM2.5, which come from sources like dust, smoking, cooking, and burning candles. Lastly, PM0.1 particles are extremely small and can travel into our lungs, making it even more important to find a purifier to tackle these kind of particles in sleeping areas.
Smart app
Last but not least, you'll want to consider if you need an air purifier that has an accompanying smart app or not. If you just want to turn an air purifier on and leave it in the corner to do its thing, then you probably won't need one with a smart app and can actually save quite a bit on the price tag. But if you want to monitor your air quality, remotely turn your purifier off and on, and integrate it with smart assistants, then you'll want to get one that has an accompanying app.
